Casinos continue to seek new and exciting games to present to players in order to maintain player interest. One of the most popular casino or wagering-style games is poker, including the variation presented at a gaming machine known as video poker. In the game of video poker, a player attempts to form one or more hands of cards which are compared against a paytable of winning hands. The player attempts to achieve one of the winning hands in the paytable in order to receive a payout or award.
One of the most basic forms of video poker is “draw” video poker. In accordance with this game, a player is dealt a single hand of cards and then is given the opportunity to discard and replace one or more of those cards (i.e. “draw” one or more replacement cards). The player's final hand comprising the original cards and as replaced by any replacement cards is then evaluated against the paytable of winning hands.
In order to make the game of video poker more exciting, numerous variations of the game have been developed. For example, in the variation known as Triple Play™ offered by IGT, a player is dealt a hand of cards and elects cards to be held. The cards held in the base hand are replicated into one or more additional hands. Each hand is then completed with one or more additional cards and those multiple hands are then all evaluated against the paytable of winning hands. While this game has been extremely popular, players still desire and seek out even newer games, including poker and video poker games.